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MEXICO
HARVEY RELIEF
12 dead in tour bus crash
How money spent remains unclear
Cruise ship passengers on way to see Mayan ruins By Christopher Sherman A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS
MEXICO CITY — At least 12 people died when a bus carrying cruise ship passengers to Mayan ruins in eastern Mexico flipped over on a highway early Tuesday, officials said. Seven Americans and two Swedes were among the injured, Quintana Roo state Civil Defense spokesman Vicente Martin said. He said authorities hadn’t yet established the nationalities of the dead. Video images from the scene
showed the bus on its side in vegetation off the two-lane highway, with some survivors lying on the pavement and others walking around. Miami-based Royal Caribbean Cruises said in a statement that passengers from two of its ships, the Celebrity Equinox and Serenade of the Seas, were involved in the crash. The company expressed its sympathies and said it was assisting with medical care and transportation. The U.S. Embassy in Mexico Crash continues on A8
Manuel Jesus Ortega Canche / AFP/Getty Images
Officers and paramedics work in the scene of an accident, where a bus driving tourists to see the Mayan ruins overturned in Quintana Roo state, Mexico on Tuesday.
CONGRESS DELAYS DACA FIX
Courtesy photo
Immigrant youth marched to U.S. Congressman Henry Cuellar's office in Washington, D.C. on Friday, demanding he commits to the DREAM Act this year.
Young immigrants’ fate unclear in race to avoid deportation A S S OCIAT E D PRE SS
Laura Lopez is a Mexican immigrant living in Florida who has been racing against time to avoid deportation. Lopez said she arrived at the post office just after the cutoff time and missed the deadline set by President Donald Trump to renew her paperwork for the Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals program that helps young immigrants brought into the country illegally. Lopez, 30, blamed the chaos of Hurricane Irma while juggling a move from Miami to Daytona Beach as reasons why she missed the cutoff. As a result, her status as a recipient of DACA ends Friday. Her driver’s license, car insurance and housing lease are all in jeopardy once the program goes
away for her. “Everywhere I go, everything and everyone reminds me I have an expiration date” said Lopez, who is still trying to show proof that she attempted to send her renewal package the day before the Oct. 5 deadline. “The government is playing with the lives of families.” Lopez is one of thousands of immigrants who are losing their protection from deportation under the program established by President Barack Obama in 2012, including many who missed the deadline or saw their applications lost in the mail. The immigrants also are being provided a glimpse of what will happen if Congress is unable to come up with a permanent replacement. Thousands more will start seeing their protections end in March. Here are some questions and
By Emily Schmall ASSOCIATED PRE SS
U.S. IMMIGRATION
By Adriana Gomez Licon
Lack of transparency clouds distribution
answers about the process: WHY THE RUSH? In theory, DACA recipients should be protected until March. Under the program, immigrants get two-year permits that let them work and remain in the country. Trump rescinded the program earlier this year, but he let immigrants renew their papers if they were set to expire between September and March. Immigrants had to reapply by Oct. 5 and pay a $495 fee. The government says 132,000 of the 154,000 eligible DACA renewals applied in time, leaving more than 20,000 without any protection from deportation. There have been other problems. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services said
900 requests were mistakenly rejected for being late, despite having arrived at the filing sites on time. Those applicants were told to reapply by Dec. 2. The agency said it is still working to determine how many requests were affected by U.S. Postal Service delays, following reports of immigrants who shipped their documents well in advance and were delivered late. These applicants are now waiting for instructions on how to resubmit their renewal requests. CAN THESE IMMIGRANTS BE DEPORTED? Advocacy groups are highlighting the detention in Pennsylvania last week of a Guatemalan immigrant whose DACA renewal was reportedly among the ones delayed by the postal DACA continues on A8
FORT WORTH — Texas has been awarded billions in federal aid to help recover from Hurricane Harvey and the devastating flooding that followed, but it’s unclear how the state is spending its share of the money. State records don’t indicate which contracts are stormrelated, making fund tracking — and spending accountability — nearly impossible. Disaster recovery experts say the lack of transparency in Texas could hinder coordination, encourage fraud and squander an opportunity not only to rebuild after one of the country’s costliest natural disasters, but also to mitigate the risks of the next monster storm. Here’s a look at where some of the money has gone and what’s not being tracked: FEDERAL ASSISTANCE Texas has received more than $11 billion in federal disaster aid since Hurricane Harvey hit the state’s Gulf Coast in late August. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has appealed for $61 billion more in federal assistance, largely for public infrastructure projects. The bulk of the federal money spent so far has gone through federal agencies, which — unlike Texas agencies — maintain public, frequently updated databases of their spending. The Federal Emergency Management Agency also provides daily updates. Those records show that as of Dec. 12, FEMA paid $1.47 billion for hotel bills and emergency home repairs; the Small Business Administration issued $2.84 billion in low-interest loans to homeowners and businesses; and the National Flood Insurance Program paid $6.87 billion in flood insurance. The federal government also maintained a centralized database to search for contracts awarded during the storm. HOW TEXAS SPENDS FEDERAL AID It’s much harder to track federal money being distributed through the state. So far, more than $500 million in federal dollars have gone directly to Texas to reimburse state agencies and local jurisdictions for debris removal, power restoration and emergency infrastructure repairs. But how the money has been spent is unclear. Abbott, who divided funding coordination among several state agencies, appointed a commission to help hard-hit cities, towns and counties get Harvey continues on A5